Infect Banned As Of 4/1/2014 and the House of Melira

Infect Banned As Of 4/1/2014 and the House of Melira

While infect is, as game mechanics go, seriously bad ass, it is not a mechanic that easily lends itself to the type of play that this tournament was intended to be. Now, I know that just using the word "tournament" creates an atmosphere of competition, which causes players to find the best ways possible to win. However, the bombastic, quicker-than-thou brutality of infect prevents players from sufficient time to enjoy the full range of mindsets, speculative strategy, flavor and community of playing magic in a non-pro environment. It is just a wanton blood bath. Additionally, it creates an atmosphere where all who are not playing infect must have a deck made to eliminate infect. Two types of decks emerge as ubiquitous: Infect and Anti-infect. This is not what I want out of play.

I want to simmer in strategy. I want the chance to use cards I never use. I want to explore new strategies and develop new community ties. When I lose (which seems to be often these days) I want to be thankful for the lesson. I want to have fun. I also want the younger members of our group to continue playing and learning. 

There are some of you who disagree. That is okay. I know who you are and I respect your opinions and I even understand your rationale. But I also know that each of you is smart enough and humble enough to let infect go.

House Rule #1: No Infect...Ever.
A change to this can only be made if all members vote unanimously to allow infect. A call for a vote can be made by an interested member once a gaming session before the tournament starts.

One way I thought we could do this in an interesting way is to give the tournament an emblem that is similar to the card Melira, Sylvok Outcast. The emblem would read like this: Players may not receive poison counters, all creatures lose infect and all instances of the word infect on all cards are disregarded. That way, players may still use creatures that have infect as regular creatures. For example, Priests of Norn is a 1/4 infect with vigilance. It would just be a 1/4 creature with vigilance. This might create new deckbuilding matrices for dynamics such as creature typing.

Let's discuss next tournament. We would consider the emblem as "House of Melira" or "Melira is in effect".